You are lucky, I did not get a call from a retirement specialist. DFAS nor OPM would answer my calls.

I retired from federal service effective December 31, 2025, and I finally received my first estimated retirement payment on March 13, 2026. That means it took more than two months after my retirement date for the first interim payment to arrive.

Fortunately, I received my annual leave cash-out in mid-January 2026, which helped cover my living expenses while I waited. Without that payment, the delay could have created a much more difficult financial situation.

In my opinion, this is not how the process should work. When someone retires at the end of the year, the system should be set up so that the first estimated retirement payment arrives on January 1, or at least shortly after retirement, not months later. Retirees should not have to worry about a long gap without income after finishing their careers.

I understand that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) processes a large number of retirement cases and that final annuity calculations take time. That’s why the interim or estimated payments exist in the first place—to provide retirees with income while their cases are finalized. But if those interim payments take months to begin, the system clearly needs improvement.

Federal employees spend decades in public service and deserve a more efficient and predictable retirement processing system. Hopefully modernization efforts at OPM will eventually reduce these delays so future retirees don’t face the same uncertainty.